


Fireheart

by ikeracity



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Charles Is a Big Dorkface, Dragons, Erik is a Sweetheart, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Mating Rituals, Nesting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 16:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5298533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikeracity/pseuds/ikeracity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles owns a failing bookstore in Manhattan, Erik is his grumpy boyfriend, Raven is expecting hatchlings, and Azazel hovers. </p><p>A modern day dragon AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireheart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kageillusionz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kageillusionz/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [Fireheart 龙心似火](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5389169) by [Glacier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glacier/pseuds/Glacier)



> Written for the lovely kage for the Secret Mutant Madness holiday exchange, based on the "FREE SPACE" prompt. All thanks to my two betas. You know who you are. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! :)

November was a particularly miserable time. Sean accidentally shattered all the windows in his apartment, Raven reached that month of pregnancy where she hated everything, Erik broke his leg, and Charles’s bookstore failed to turn a profit for the third month in a row.

“Look,” Erik pointed out from where he was laid up in an armchair behind the display of children’s books, “what do you expect when you chase away anyone who tries to buy anything? I’m amazed you thought you could ever turn a profit at all.”

“I don’t chase away just _anyone_ ,” Charles grumbled, sat cross-legged on the front counter as he examined one of his older editions of _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn._ There was a smudge of dust on its cover, which he wiped off gently before cracking open the book to assess the condition of the pages. “Only people who aren’t worthy of my books.”

Erik snorted. “Meaning everyone.” 

“Not _everyone_. I’ve sold _you_ a book, haven’t I? And don’t snort—I’ll be very cross with you if you set my books on fire.”

“I never set anything on fire that I don’t mean to,” Erik replied, picking up a copy of _The Cat in the Hat_ and thumbing through it. “And let’s not pretend you don’t check on the state of that book every time you come over. It’s practically still yours.”

Charles harrumphed. “I just don’t like parting with my books, all right?”

“Why you opened a bookstore in the first place is beyond me.”

Honestly, it was a bit beyond Charles, too. It had seemed like a fun idea at the time: open a bookstore, fill the shelves with his lovingly worn books, meet fellow bibliophiles, start a book club and a tea corner and have bookstore cats lounging around on books and old scratch records—perhaps have a café directly adjacent to serve to anyone who wanted to laze about on a sunny afternoon and read with coffee or tea close at hand…

Most of those ideas had never panned out because Charles had realized quickly enough how outrageously upsetting it was to be parted from even the least of his books, and now he had this beautiful, cozy, disastrously unprofitable bookstore that he loved dearly, even if it was hemorrhaging money daily.

“You _did_ say this would happen,” Charles said mournfully as he hopped off the counter. It was easy to locate exactly where _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ belonged—Charles knew the contents of every single shelf like he knew his own heartbeat. He slid the book into the slim gap between _Gulliver’s Travels_ and _The Odyssey,_ which was turned so that the spine faced inward because it was the John Dryden translation that Charles didn’t care for, no matter how much he adored old books.

“I did.” Erik made no attempt to hide his exasperation. “Every time you have a stupid idea, I tell you you’ll regret it, and you never listen to me.”

Charles poked his head around the shelf, eyebrow arched. “Do you remember when you told me it was a stupid idea for us to get involved?”

Erik huffed. “Touché.”

As he continued to sprawl pathetically in the armchair, his broken leg propped up on a stool, Charles went about tidying up the store, dusting where necessary, straightening books that people had touched and left crooked. He ran his palms along their spines, trying to cover up the scent of strangers with his own. Every whiff of a foreign touch on his books made his lip curl slightly. Erik was right: everything about this had been a stupid idea from the beginning. Charles loved the idea of owning a bookstore, but he hated other people touching his treasures. It made him grumpy that strangers were coming in and laying hands on the hoard he had spent several long centuries carefully maintaining and guarding from prying eyes. He grew grumpier still when he remembered that he had literally _invited_ them in.

He heaved a sigh, plucking _The Road_ from its perch and running his hand down its cover. Some boy had come in earlier this week to take a look at it, and his disgustingly strong cologne still lingered on the book jacket. Charles wrinkled his nose and said emphatically, “I’m an idiot.”

Erik snorted again, and this time a puff of smoke _did_ curl from his nostrils. When Charles glared at him, he blew away the smoke and said, “Yes, that’s not a revelation.”

Charles pouted. “You’re endlessly helpful.”

Erik went back to poking through _The Cat in the Hat._ “You’re hardly a hatchling, Charles. Why would you ever open up your hoard to the possibility of plundering? Honestly, it’s like you forgot how to be a dragon.”

“Modern times, Erik, modern times. I was _trying_ to adapt.” And he had always dreamed of running a bookstore, sharing his love of literature with others. He had just underestimated his possessiveness over his books, that was all.

“You snapped a man’s hand off once for touching your Chaucer,” Erik said dryly. “You twitch every time someone comes in and looks at _The Once and Future King_. Surely there were smarter ways to adapt.”

“Oh all right, you don’t have to rub my nose in it.” Charles put _The Road_ back and slipped another handful of books from their spots, gathering them in his arms, inhaling their scent. Wonderful and precious and lovely. His eyes slipped closed briefly in pleasure. “I suppose I’ll close early today. I’ll think about it.”

“Shutting the store?”

Charles sighed. “Yes.” He turned on Erik. “You realize this means you’ll be our main breadwinner now?”

Erik gave him an unimpressed look over the edge of his book. “Yes, I’m sure you’ll be utterly helpless sitting in your mansion on top of your pile of gold.”

“You know how little I like to touch that money,” Charles said, a bit reproachfully. It was old family money, but it was tainted by his stepfather. Kurt Marko’s scent was all over it, irritatingly enough. Perhaps it would wash out naturally in ten years or so, but until then, Charles would leave that money where it was.

“Fair enough,” Erik conceded. He reached for his crutches and levered himself to his feet. Even with a broken leg, he still cut a lithe, elegant figure. Charles eyed him appreciatively, admiring that lean torso and that stupidly narrow waist and the flex of Erik’s beautiful hands around the handles of his crutches. If he had met Erik before he had imprinted on books, Charles thought, he might have started hoarding unfairly gorgeous men instead.

Erik’s eyes gleamed with amusement when he caught Charles looking. “Come over here.”

Charles came obediently and leaned up for a kiss. As usual, Erik tasted like smoke and metal,  a tang of flavor that used to always make Charles grimace. He’d since grown accustomed to the taste, and besides, he didn’t have much room to complain—Erik said Charles’s mouth tasted like smoke and paper, which he supposed wasn’t much better.

“I’ll see you tonight?” Erik murmured. “My place?”

“I promised Raven I’d be by, but I’ll come afterwards with dinner.”

“I’ll cook something.”

Charles tugged on the lapels of Erik’s black leather jacket. “No, you won’t. The doctor said to keep off your leg.”

“Human doctors,” Erik growled. “What do they know?”

“Enough,” Charles said wryly. He patted Erik’s chest and stepped off. “Take care, darling. If you fall down the steps to the subway again, call me and I’ll come get you.”

“That was _once_ ,” Erik griped.

 After he was gone, Charles turned the OPEN sign around and locked the front door. He swept the floors, made another round through the shelves, considered the titles carefully, and finally selected _The Quiet American_ to take with him to Raven’s. Then, once he had double-checked the locks and made sure the windows were shut tight, he stepped out into the chill November evening.

Charles hated the cold. It made him feel sluggish and sleepy, made him want to go and curl up in front of a blasting furnace and sleep until the snow melted away. Dragons of his sort were not suited to cold weather. Dragons of Erik’s sort, on the other hand, were suited to all kinds of weather. Lucky bastard.

He took the train to Raven’s. She lived on the outskirts of the city where the people weren’t quite so crammed on top of each other, where she could spread her wings and stomp around when she felt like it, though she didn’t feel like it very often because it disturbed the neighbors. Besides, she didn’t shift much these days, so close to the end of her pregnancy.

Azazel answered before Charles had even knocked. “Smelled you coming,” he said by way of explanation. Though he’d been living in the U.S. for decades now, he, like Charles, stubbornly clung to his original accent. It made him sound gruffer than he actually was. “She’s in the den.”

“How is she?” Charles asked, tugging his scarf free as he stepped inside. The hallway inside was brightly-lit and toasty, warmth sinking through his coat and settling pleasantly in Charles’s bones.

Azazel grimaced. “Very grumpy. Very ready to have the hatchlings out.”

“The nest?”

“Finished.” Frowning, Azazel shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I still want to go further north. There is a cave—”

“You know as well as I that Raven would never consent to have her hatchlings in a cave somewhere,” Charles said, cocking an eyebrow. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been _that_ primitive.”

“Primitive,” Azazel grumbled. “I call it _‘traditional.’”_

Though their house normally had knives strewn everywhere, hung on walls and piled up on the floors and scattered across tabletops, all of Azazel’s hoard was conspicuously missing today. “I put them in storage,” Azazel said with a regretful sigh. “With the hatchlings around—it would be dangerous.”  

“Good idea,” Charles agreed. He supposed it was lucky that he and Erik would never share hatchlings—at least he would never have to worry about any babies damaging his hoard one way or another. Still, the idea of having hatchlings together made him faintly wistful. In another lifetime, perhaps.

“Is that Charles?” came Raven’s voice from down the hall.  

Charles headed toward the den. “Yes, it’s me.”

“Good.” Raven waved at him impatiently as he came in. She was reclining on the couch in her pajamas, one hand supporting her swollen belly. “Did you bring me something?”  

“You’re looking good,” Charles offered. It wasn’t a complete lie—she _did_ look better than he’d expected. She’d at least washed her hair since the last time he’d seen her. For the first few months of her pregnancy, she’d remained obstinately put-together, strutting out in her fashionable maternity clothes and going about her business as if nothing was at all different. But even Raven, for all her unconventional tendencies, couldn’t fight the nesting instinct.

“I look hideous,” Raven retorted, glaring. She held out her hand expectantly. “You said you’d bring me a book.”

He dutifully produced _The Quiet American._ “Ran out of things to watch on Netflix, I see.”

“And on HBO and Hulu and Amazon Plus. I also watched all the DVDs we own and played through _The Wolf Among Us_ and three _Call of Duty_ games. I’m really fucking bored, but all my body wants to do is curl up here and wait for the hatchlings to come.” She bared her teeth. “I cannot _wait_ until this is over.”

“Only a couple more weeks to go, give or take a couple of days.” When she snatched the book from his hand, he winced. “Please be gentle with that.”

“I know, I’ll take good care of your precious book.” She skimmed the back cover and growled in disapproval. “You couldn’t have brought me something more interesting?”

“You didn’t tell me what you wanted. If you don’t like it, I’ll take it back.”

She clutched the book to her side with one hand and shooed him off with the other. “No, it’s fine.”

As she flipped open to the first page, Charles glanced around. The den was the largest room in the house, and it was where Azazel had built their nest. It had to be spacious to accommodate Raven’s dragon form when the eggs came. As her due date neared, she would find it harder and harder to assume her human form, the impending birth forcing the shift. She and Azazel had planned ahead for that, making sure the room was large enough to comfortably fit her and the hatchlings when the time came. Azazel had done nicely with the nest: luxuriously thick wool blankets lay in heaping layers all across the floor, dozens of pillows and cushions sat piled around the edges of the room, and half a dozen wall lamps cast a warm yellow glow all across the den. In the center of it all lay Raven, sprawled on the couch that would no doubt be moved away once they needed the room. The only other furniture in the room was the TV stand and the TV, as well as a PS3 tucked in beside a stack of DVDs.

“Cozy,” Charles remarked.

Raven’s eyes flashed with pleasure. “Isn’t it? It’s perfect.” She ran a hand over the sleek blue fleece that covered her legs. “You wouldn’t believe how warm it gets in here, even at night. Like an oven.”

He allowed himself a moment to wonder what it would be like to build a nest for Erik, or perhaps to allow Erik to build one for him. One day, hopefully. The thought sent a thrill down his spine.

“Good,” he said. “You and the hatchlings need to be comfortable. You _are_ still planning on naming one of them after me, aren’t you?”

Rolling her eyes, she sank further into the mountain of blankets on the couch. “Of course, brother dearest. I’ll name the runt after you.”

He threw a hand over his heart. “I’m wounded.”

“Go cry to Erik. I’m sure he’ll kiss it all better.”  

“Oh, he will,” Charles said, waggling his eyebrows.

Raven shot him a disgusted look. “I might actually throw up on you.”

“Please don’t. I’m meeting Erik for dinner later and I’d rather not smell like vomit.”

Raven harrumphed and propped Charles’s book open on the swell of her belly. Her eyes scanned over the first page before flicking over the top of the book to Charles. “How is he?”

Charles shrugged. “Good. Cranky about being grounded, but that’s only to be expected.”

“He still can’t fly?”

“Not until his leg’s healed. Doctor’s orders.”

She snorted. “Human doctors. What do they know?”

Charles sighed. Sometimes it was disturbing how similar Raven and Erik were. “They certainly know more about human anatomy than we do. Besides, Dr. MacTaggert is trained in draconic medicine. She’s the best there is in New York.”

The last time they’d spoken, she’d been terribly intrigued when she’d heard Raven was pregnant. She’d even asked if she might be able to observe the birth, but Charles had kindly informed her that Azazel would probably attempt to kill her if she got anywhere near the nest while Raven was in labor and so she had conceded the point. Dragons always had their hatchlings in isolation, with only their mates as support and protection. Not even Charles would be permitted near before Raven decided she was ready.

They spoke for a few minutes longer before Azazel appeared in the doorway, his fingers twitching. Charles noticed him there and wrapped things up with Raven, promising to come see her again soon (and soliciting a promise from her to return his book in the same condition she had received it in).

“Sorry,” Azazel said as Charles left the den. “I know you’re her brother, but it just makes my skin itch when anyone spends too long in the nest with her. Even you.”

“Completely understandable.” It was old instinct that made Azazel feel that way, the drive to protect his pregnant mate. Charles’s own instincts told him not to overstay his welcome in another dragon’s home, especially when hatchlings were expected.

“I can take care of myself!” Raven shouted crossly from inside the den. “So you don’t need to hover around the doorway and look menacing, you know!”

Both of them smiled sheepishly at each other. “I know, fireheart,” Azazel said, making a conscious effort to step away from the doorway. “Sorry.” To Charles, he said with some reluctance, “Feel free to stay as long as Raven wants you. I’ll just…go away for a bit.”

It was a generous offer, but Charles shook his head. “It’s fine. I need to head out to meet Erik for dinner anyway. I’ll see you sometime soon.”

They shook hands, and Charles left, plunging back into the cold. He took the train back to the city and stopped by one of his and Erik’s favorite hole-in-the-wall Chinese places. Erik’s apartment was only a few minutes away from his, so Charles stopped by his bookstore to pick out something to carry. He liked having a book on hand at all times, even if he didn’t touch it all night. He tucked _When We Were Orphans_ under his arm and walked the four blocks to Erik’s, grimacing at the whistling wind the whole time.

He didn’t bother knocking; Erik always had the door unlocked when he knew Charles was coming over. He hung his scarf up on the coatrack but kept his coat on, still chilled from the outdoors. When he wandered into the living room, he found Erik in the armchair beside the fireplace, tinkering restlessly with a few scraps of silver metal.

“I got you walnut shrimp,” Charles said, shaking the takeout bag lightly. “Are you hungry yet?”

“Starving,” Erik admitted. He put the scrap metal down on a side table and leaned forward to clear some space on the coffee table. Charles would have helped, but Erik didn’t like for anyone to touch his metal, not even Charles. Erik was even more possessive about his hoard than Charles was about his books, which was saying something.

They sprawled on the couch together with steaming cartons in their laps, randomly selected a movie on Netflix, and spent the whole time nitpicking the details. Crime thrillers never satisfied either of them anymore, not after they’d spent sixteen or seventeen years as detectives in the Special Crimes Unit in L.A. That experience had taught Charles that detective work was a whole lot more paperwork and a whole lot less back-alley shootouts than Hollywood suggested. It was no wonder Erik had eventually bored of the career, and after he’d left, Charles had followed, naturally.

“It’s the CPA,” Charles said thirty minutes in. “She had the motive and the means.”  

Erik propped his bad leg up on the coffee table. “Not to mention the shitty foreshadowing. This plot is so corny a fifth-grader could have written it.”

Charles hummed in agreement. He was beginning to wish he’d put on _Mad Max_ instead—now _that_ was a movie they could both enjoy a hundred times over. Charles loved a good story, and Erik—well, just staring at all the gorgeously inventive vehicles could make Erik’s eyes glaze over. Hanukkah gift ideas, Charles mused. There was almost nothing Erik loved more than a classic car.

They were proved right in the end: the last act of the movie consisted of the increasingly unhinged CPA decapitating several police officers and displaying their gory heads in the windows of the police department before finally getting shot dead mid-shift by the hero of the story, the strong-jawed rookie detective who, up until then, had done nothing except sit around and angst about his dead parents.

“Well of course the serial killer was a dragon in disguise,” Erik growled, stabbing at his chow mein. “And of course she had a hoard of severed heads, because all dragons are bloodthirsty animals.”

“It’s just a B movie,” Charles said. He usually tried not to get too worked up about B movies. At least popular mainstream movies were doing better about positive portrayals of dragons. There were even rumors of a dragon-born girl joining the Avengers in the next movie.

Erik ignored him. “And if she were a _real_ dragon, she would never have put those heads on display. What kind of self-respecting dragon dangles their hoard in plain view for anyone to see and steal? It’s called a _treasure_ for a _reason_ , that means you _protect_ it—”

Charles left him to fume about it and went to the kitchen to fetch some wine. As usual, Erik had only cheap stuff in the fridge; no matter how many times Charles tried to teach him to appreciate a decent vintage, Erik insisted on buying only whatever was on sale. He had always been miserly, mostly because in the older days, he had hated parting with any of his precious metal coins. Even the advent of paper money and credit cards hadn’t broken him of that habit.

Charles selected one of the less awful bottles and poured a glass for each of them. By the time he returned, Erik had calmed down for the most part and changed channels to a benign documentary about penguins. When Charles handed him his glass, their fingers brushed, and Erik frowned reproachfully. “You forgot your gloves again.”

Charles rubbed his cold fingers together. “I couldn’t find them. I’m always losing those damned things.”

“Come here,” Erik said, setting his wineglass to the side and patting his legs. Charles settled into his lap with a sigh of satisfaction—Erik was furnace-hot as usual and very pleasant to touch. Good boyfriend that he was, he flinched but didn’t complain when Charles’s cold hands stole up his shirt and pressed against his belly. Charles leaned his head against Erik’s shoulder and purred when Erik stroked a hand through his hair.

“Raven’s due soon,” Charles murmured, sipping his wine. “They’ll have tiny adorable hatchlings running around—can you imagine that?”

“They’ll poop everywhere and eat like little monsters and scream in the middle of the night.”

“Yes, and they’ll be lovely.”

“They’ll chew your books.”

Charles wrinkled his nose. “Well we won’t be having them _over_.”

Erik laughed softly. “Anything is lovely until it threatens your books, and then it’s monstrous.” He kissed Charles’s hair and hitched him a little closer. 

They watched the penguin documentary for a while because there wasn’t anything else very interesting. Charles finished his wineglass, poured another, and finished that one, too. Then he curled up beside Erik and dozed lightly on his shoulder, his chest rumbling with a quiet, content purr. After the documentary was over, Erik shook him gently and said, “Do you want to go to bed?”

Charles yawned and stretched. “Not particularly. It’s hardly eight o’clock.”

Erik was quiet for a moment. Then he took a breath, as if steeling himself, and asked, “Have you ever thought about having hatchlings yourself?”

Charles blinked. “What?”

“Having hatchlings. Would you ever want them yourself?”

“Well…” Charles had thought about it, of course. But he had never found the right partner, not in all his years. “Maybe.”  

Erik’s mouth pressed into a thin, unhappy line. “We’ll never have hatchlings, the two of us. I don’t want you to come to regret that.”

Fully awake now, Charles sat up straight, struggling to make sense of what Erik was saying. “Are you…Erik, what are you saying?”  

Erik wasn’t meeting his eyes; he was staring instead at the intricately shaped metal owl on the side table next to the lamp. “I’ve seen the way you light up when you talk about Raven and her hatchlings. You love children and you love the idea of having your own, I know you do. But you could never have that with me.”

What was going on? Two minutes ago everything had been all right, and now Charles felt cold all over, his heart thumping hard in his chest. “Erik, that’s all right. I knew that when we got together. I don’t need a brood to be happy, I need _you_.” He tried to catch Erik’s eyes. “You understand that, don’t you?”

Erik pulled away, putting distance between them. “You may feel like that now, but what about when Raven’s hatchlings come and you fall in love with them? What about when you start wanting a family of your own? Won’t you come to resent me for keeping you from that?”

Charles stared at him, bewildered. “Erik, why are we talking about this?” They were only dating—Erik couldn’t _keep_ him from anything, if he really wanted it. It wasn’t as if they were committed, not like true mates, not for life.

His eyes widened. Unless…

“I want to build you a nest,” Erik said, low and fierce.

Charles stopped breathing. He sat there in stunned, frozen silence, his heart missing several beats. When he didn’t say anything, Erik said again, “I want to build you a nest. I want to live with you and love you and keep you forever as mine. I want to pledge my life to you, Charles, if you’ll let me.” Finally he looked over and met Charles’s eyes, took Charles’s hand in his own and squeezed it. “Will you let me?”

“Erik…”

Charles couldn’t go on, his head spinning. They’d been seeing each other for nearly three years now, only the blink of an eye—in the old days, a courtship would take at least ten, fifteen years, perhaps more among traditionalists. But he and Erik had known each other for much longer than they’d been dating. They’d met over a hundred years ago, close to a hundred and thirty—Charles had lost count over time. He knew Erik better than he knew anyone else save for Raven, better than he knew his own heart sometimes. Erik was his better half, his best friend. Charles loved him more than he loved Chaucer, more than he loved Shakespeare, more than he loved any book he had ever owned.

His answer, then, was obvious.

“Yes,” he said, a hot and gorgeous feeling unfurling in his chest, like the first time he had ever breathed fire. “Yes, Erik, of _course_.”

Erik grabbed him close and yanked him into a kiss, his smoke-and-metal essence filling Charles’s mouth, his nose, his entire mind. Charles clutched him close, fingers twisting in the cotton of Erik’s shirt, nose pressed against Erik’s cheek as Erik sucked on his bottom lip and nipped at his jaw. He pushed Charles’s coat aside and rucked up Charles’s sweater and shirt before splaying his hand hot against Charles’s belly. Charles arched up against his touch, eager for more.

“Wait,” Erik said breathlessly when Charles fumbled with his belt. He grabbed Charles’s hand and pushed it away. “Wait, I have something to give you first.”

“ _Now?”_ Charles groaned. “Can’t it wait?”

“No, it can’t.”

Reluctantly, Charles let him up and watched as Erik grabbed his crutches and disappeared down the hall to the bedroom. He had hardly managed to catch his breath before Erik returned, clutching something in one hand, having abandoned one of his crutches along the way. He limped back to Charles and sank back down onto the couch.

Charles held out his hand without having to be asked. Erik took it, squeezed it briefly, and then laid a shining, golden ring onto Charles’s palm. It was a modest band with no inset stones and no decorations, but Charles felt its weight and knew it was old and very precious. He held it in his hand without moving for a long, heady moment. This was Erik’s mating gift.

“It was my mother’s,” Erik said. “She gave it to my father when they were mated.”  

Carefully, Charles picked the ring up and examined it more closely. It was lovely in its simplicity, made lovelier still by the fact that it was a piece of Erik’s hoard—the first piece Erik had ever given him to touch, to keep.

His heart felt several sizes too large for his chest. “Thank you,” he said softly.

Erik took the ring from him and slid it onto his ring finger, but it was loose there so he transferred it to Charles’s pointer finger, where it fit better. “Keep it on?”

“I will,” Charles promised, his voice thick.

It was customary now for him to give Erik something from his hoard in return, to seal their commitment. He pulled _When We Were Orphans_ from his coat and pressed it into Erik’s hands. “Keep this until I see you next time,” he said. “It’s not the book I want you to have, but I want you to have something.”

Erik smiled. “I’ll take good care of it.”

“You had better.” He took the book from Erik again and set it aside on the coffee table. Then, grabbing the front of Erik’s shirt, he hitched him close and murmured, “Now I believe we were in the middle of something.”

Erik grinned against his mouth. “I believe we were.”

 

*

 

The next day, Charles didn’t open up his store. Instead, he kept the sign flipped to CLOSED and spent the morning figuring out how to close up shop. By the time Erik dropped by for lunch, Charles was both ravenous and extremely frustrated.

“Come help me,” he said, waving Erik over to the front counter. “Explain to me how this is supposed to work.”

Erik glanced at the computer screen, and his eyebrow ticked up. “Planning on closing the store finally? How am I supposed to help?”

“You were a lawyer once. You know all the legal lingo.”

“I was a lawyer in the _1930s_. Hardly helpful with this.” Erik pressed a kiss under Charles’s ear and laid _When We Were Orphans_ on the counter. “I brought it as you said.”

Charles couldn’t help but pick it up to make sure its condition hadn’t changed since yesterday. Spine, pages, cover—they were all in order. Reassured, he went to reshelf it, then beckoned to Erik. “Come here.”

The sound of crutches muffled on carpet followed Charles down one aisle, then another, all the way to the back wall. Here, in the back of the store, was where he’d tucked his most treasured books, the ones he loved above all others. They were set back here to deter customers from looking at them, though that hadn’t stopped some. Since the store had opened, he had sold a handful of his least favorite books, but he had never once parted with any of these in the back. It would have been like giving a child away.

He bent to one knee now and took a thick book off the bottom shelf, brushing one hand lovingly across the faded gold lettering of its blue cover. He could feel Erik holding himself very still behind him, hardly even breathing. For a long moment, Charles remained crouched there, his thumb running up and down the book’s worn spine. Then he stood up and handed it over.

“ _The Once and Future King_ ,” Erik said quietly, touching the golden lettering. “Your favorite.”

“Yours now,” Charles said with a little difficulty. He let out a long breath and smiled. “Keep it safe for me.”

Erik gave him a look that sent a warm tingle down his spine. “Always.”

They had lunch at the deli down the street, and then they walked back to Charles’s bookstore. His apartment sat just above it on the second floor, and after much grumbling, Erik made it up the stairs and they tumbled into bed. They made love in the sunlight and laid there tangled together afterwards, drowsy and sore and utterly content.

“You’re all right with the fact that we won’t ever have hatchlings?” Erik asked, stroking Charles’s sweaty hair.

“Yes,” Charles murmured into his chest. “I have you. That’s all I ever wanted. And besides, if I’m ever desperate to play with hatchlings, I’ll ask Raven if I can babysit. I’m sure she’ll be delighted if I offer.”

Erik kissed the top of his head. “Good idea.”

Yawning, Charles snuggled closer to him and closed his eyes. “Read to me, darling?”

“If you want, fireheart.”

Charles’s eyes snapped open. “Fireheart,” he echoed, awed. They were life-mates now, he thought. They could call each other that.

He pressed his hand against Erik’s chest, feeling out his strong heartbeat. “Fireheart.”

Erik clasped his hand and squeezed it. Then he reached over him to the nightstand, where _The Once and Future King_ sat waiting. Opening the book up to the first page, he laced their fingers together, cleared his throat, and began to read. As he listened to Erik’s steady voice rise and fall and felt the rumble of each word in his chest, Charles closed his eyes and smiled.


End file.
